Lawrence Harrison's disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal, Haiti and the Vodou Curse,
is filled with ethnocentrism, religious intolerance, and ignorance of
the subject addressed, namely Haiti's underdevelopment. Haiti's poverty
is an economic issue. To understand how it arose, one need only review
how economic decisions taken inside and outside of Haiti have affected
the country.

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The foundation for Haiti's underdevelopment was
laid by its colonial administrators. During a combined 300 years of
Spanish, British, and French rule, not one school was built in the
territory. After Haiti's independence in 1804, the US and other slave
trading countries imposed and economic embargo on Haiti lasting nearly
60 years. This crushing embargo was only lifted as a consequence of the
US Civil War. If embargoes are inconsequential as Harrison suggests,
then the one against Cuba ought to be lifted and embargoes should be
abandoned as a tool for implementing U.S. foreign policy.

Harrison's
article mentions the indemnity extracted by France but conveniently
overlooks its impact. In 1821, France demanded that Haiti pays it 150
million francs for loss of revenue from the island. This indemnity is
estimated to be equivalent to 21 billion dollars in today's currency.
Paul Farmer said it well, when he said that Haiti paid with money what
it had already paid in blood. The payments to France further crippled
Haiti's economy by preventing necessary investments in education and
infrastructure.

Beyond these manmade difficulties, Haiti also
experienced numerous natural disasters like the earthquake of 1842 that
killed half of the inhabitants of its second largest city, Cape
Haitian. In 2008, four hurricanes caused millions of dollars of
damages. Repeated natural disasters further contributed to Haiti's
economic woes.

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Internally, the most devastating measures taken
by Haitian rulers have been a persistent reliance on an agrarian
economy instead of investing in industrialization. All countries of the
world that have relied on agriculture rather than industrialization are
today similarly poor and ill-equipped to partake in the information
age. This is the real similarity between Haiti and Benin as it relates
to development.

To explain Haiti's poverty, Harrison puts
forward a genetic and a religious explanation and gets both wrong. He
says that Haitians are mostly of Benin ancestry when indeed according
to the database from Harvard and Cambridge University that compiled
records from the Trans-Atlantic Trade, Haitians are predominantly of
Central African descent.

He misleads the reader to attack Vodou
rather than provide a tactile accounting of the history that led to
Haiti's underdevelopment. Harrison, the former head of USAID in Haiti,
offered no accountability for his use of US resources during his
tenure. He makes no mention of his role in distributing US AID during
the brutal Duvalier dictatorship. Jean Claude Duvalier's regime
deposited funds in foreign accounts rather than invest in building the
necessary infrastructure for development. It is such corruption and not
how Haitian people worship that best explains Haiti's underdevelopment.

In
an attempt to make Vodou seem bizarre, Harrison wrote: Voodoo is one of
numerous spirit-based religions common to Africa. It is without ethical
content. He says this as though his own religion, presumably a brand of
Christianity, is not a spirit based religion. Should we then conclude
that beliefs in spirits and in angels are not present in Non-African
Religions? If so, is Christ, commonly presented as God or as the Holy
Ghost, devoid of spiritual content?

The truth is Vodou is the
belief that there is one God and many African Ancestral spirits
analogous to European saints. Harrison's allegation that Vodou is
without ethical content is a vicious attack on a religious tradition
that teaches one to do good on to others so that one may also
experience good things. An old Nigerian proverb, from Haiti's Nago
Vodou tradition makes this clear: Before pricking a bird, prick
yourself so that you may know how it feels.

Like all other
religions, Haitian religious beliefs are not a hindrance to
development. China, Japan, India, and Israel are all non-Christian
countries who share the Haitian belief in reverence for Ancestors and
they are far more developed than many Christian countries in this
hemisphere. Would Harrison have us believe that the poverty found in
many Latin American countries is the result of this region's
Christianity?

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Rather than say Haiti has a Vodou curse, one can
make an equally fallacious argument that Haiti has a Christian curse
considering the extermination of its original inhabitants by Christians
and the enslavement of Africans by people who once called the territory
Saint Domingue. Such an argument would be wrong because it is not
religion but people who act on the world. It is people who have the
capacity to be kind or cruel to each other.

In the past, Haiti
was a victim of human cruelty from the likes of Napoleon and Duvalier.
Today, Haiti is experiencing unprecedented support from the world
community. How Haiti moves forward will be influenced far more by how
aid is spent than by how Haitian people worship. Fortunately, the UN
has named former President Bill Clinton to oversee some of that
expenditure. Bill Clinton has argued for accountability, for better
disaster planning, for coordinating the activities of relief agencies,
non- profit organizations, and Haitian Government agencies. Clinton is
able to point to these things because unlike Harrison, he can separate
a crusade from a development plan.

Jerry M. Gilles, M.D, FACOG

Associate Professor Department of Obstetrics and GynecologyUniversity of Miami, Miller School of Medicine